es and
drank from the same pipe at which she constantly moistened her
handkerchief.

Just then, however, Gerard, who passed by dragging M. Sabathier to the
piscinas, called to Pierre, whom he saw unoccupied, and asked him to come
and help him, for it would not be an easy task to move and bathe this
helpless victim of ataxia. And thus Pierre lingered with the sufferer in
the men's piscina for nearly half an hour, whilst Gerard returned to the
Grotto to fetch another patient. These piscinas seemed to the young
priest to be very well arranged. They were divided into three
compartments, three baths separated by partitions, with steps leading
into them. In order that one might isolate the patient, a linen curtain
hug before each entry, which was reached through a kind of waiting-room
having a paved floor, and furnished with a bench and a couple of chairs.
Here the patients undressed and dressed themselves with an awkward haste,
a nervous kind of shame. One man, whom Pierre found there when he
entered, was still naked, and wrapped himself in the curtain before
putting on a bandage with trembling hands. Another one, a consumptive who
was frightfully emaciated, sat shivering and groaning, his livid skin
mottled with violet marks. However, Pierre became more interested in
Brother Isidore, who was just being removed from one of the baths. He had
fainted away, and for a moment, indeed, it was thought that he was dead.
But at last he began moaning again, and one's heart filled with pity at
sight of his long, lank frame, which suffering had withered, and which,
with his diseased hip, looked a human remnant on exhibition. The two
hospitallers who had been bathing him had the greatest difficulty to put
on his shirt, fearful as they were that if he were suddenly shaken he
might expire in their arms.

"You will help me, Monsieur l'Abbe, won't you?" asked another hospitaller
as he began to undress M. Sabathier.

Pierre hastened to give his services, and found that the attendant,
discharging such humble duties, was none other than the Marquis de
Salmon-Roquebert whom M. de Guersaint had pointed out to him on the way
from the station to the hospital that morning. A man of forty, with a
large, aquiline, knightly nose set in a long face, the Marquis was the
last representative of one of the most ancient and illustrious families
of France. Possessing a large fortune, a regal mansion in the Rue de
Lille at Paris, and vast estates in Normand